The fragmentation of Duncan Fletcher's Ashes-winning side will be formally completed this week with the announcement - probably during the final Test at The Oval - of England's central contracts for the coming year. Certain to lose out will be Marcus Trescothick, Simon Jones and Ashley Giles, all of whom played significant roles in the 2005 triumph.

Others, too, may be wondering if their places are up for grabs, although the suspicion that the number of contracts issued will need culling from 13 to finance the administrative changes at the England and Wales Board proposed by the recent Schofield Report has been dismissed as unfounded by a senior board official.

Of the three certainties, Jones will be hardest hit. Giles has been coming to terms with the fact that his debilitating hip condition, for which he has had several operations, will end his playing career and he is expected to announce his retirement later this week.

The illness suffered by Trescothick, which manifests itself most urgently when he travels abroad, necessitating his early return from tours to India and Australia, realistically means that his future lies with Somerset now where he is enjoying his cricket and family life. The England management team are believed to have assured him that, although he was named in the preliminary list for the forthcoming Twenty20 world championship, no further pressure will be placed on him to attempt an international comeback.

Jones's troubles are centred on his lack of full recovery from the persistent knee problems he has suffered in the past two years, specifically since he collapsed in the nets before the first Test in India the winter before last. From then, he has bowled fewer than 200 overs and taken just 12 wickets, with 65 overs and the solitary wicket of Andy Flower in first-class matches. With Glamorgan unable to match his England salary, his fitness record means it will be equally difficult for him to find another county who will. The chances are he will stay with Glamorgan but on less favourable terms.

If the selectors, who make their recommendations to the ECB for ratification, feel that all the batsmen currently on contract should retain them, then the pace bowling situation creates a problem of balancing a desire to maintain the status quo with an investment in the future. Principal to this debate will be the situation regarding Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard. Key figures in the past five years or so, neither player has been able, through injury, to contribute much this season.

Since Harmison announced his retirement from one-day cricket last December, he can expect his contract, should he get one, to be downgraded. Similarly Hoggard, sixth in the list of England Test wicket-takers and careful not to opt out of one-day cricket, has rarely been selected and may find himself on a lesser contract.

Against this, though, is the progress made this summer by Ryan Sidebottom, Jimmy Anderson, who has been contracted in the past, Stuart Broad and Chris Tremlett. Two of these players at least would seem certain to gain full contracts. At present no wicketkeeper is under contract and there seems little justification to change that now.